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ANCIENT VOYAGES 



TO THE 



WESTERN CONTINENT 



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RUFUS KING SEWALL 



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ANCIENT VOYAGES 

TO THE 

WESTERN CONTINENT 

THREE PHASES OF HISTORY ON THE 
COAST OF MAINE 

BY 

RUFUS KING SEWALL 

OF WISCASSET 

VICE-PRES. MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, MEMBER OF LINCOLN COUNTY 

HISTORICAL SOCIETY; AUTHOR "SKETCHES ST. AUGUSTINE 

FLA." AND "ANCIENT DOMINION OF MAINE," LINCOLN 

LODGE, WISCASSET, POPHAM'S TOWN 

FORT ST. GEORGE 



ILLUSTRATED 



Ube Ikntcfeerbocfeer ipress 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
NEW YORK 










Copyright, 1895 

BY 

R. K. SEWALL 






> 



^ 



Dedicated 

to 

Hon. John M. Glidden of Newcastle, 

president of 

Lincoln County Historical Society, Member Maine 
Historical Society, Etc., Etc. 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE following pages are given to the public with a 
view not only to rescue matters of historical 
local interest from oblivion, but to stimulate fur- 
ther inquiry in the direction of the facts and theo- 
ries 'disclosed. 

Ancient remarkable ruins, rock-writings, and traces of 
prehistoric life on the islands and coast shores of Maine 
indicate Phoenician and Northman adventure, and are be- 
ginning to attract the attention of students of history as 
well as sea-side dwellers to the sea-shores of Maine, and 
when honestly perfected will give to Maine her " true 
.place" in history. 

The late President of Bowdoin College, Leonard Wood, 
D.D., under the auspices of the Maine Historical Society 
and of the State in the compilation of the cartography 
of our coast, started the historical and ethnical investiga- 
tions herein summarized, aided indeed by eminent French 
suggestion of antiquarian research as to intermediate 
Northman sedentary holdings between Mark-land and 
Vine-land of early Norse adventure along the shores of 
North America. 

The facts and theories herein aggregated are submitted 
for what they are worth, as a possible stimulus to further 
and fuller and abler investigation, for final conclusions in 
v 



UntroDuctfon. 



the interpretation of the earth's record of the past of 
Maine consistent with the truth of history. The facts 
discussed appertain to what in the first records of pub- 
lished New England history, localised, was known as the 
"Eastern parts," and in the earliest civil organization, 
county of Cornwall, a province of the heir-apparent of 
the English Crown, Duke of York. 

How far they may have been factors of evolution in the 
history of New England, in developing a century of civil- 
ized life and incident of the ancient kingdom of Pemaquid 1 
and dependencies, remains to be seen. 

Rufus K. Sewall. 

Wiscasset, Me., Nov. 7, 1894. 

1 Strachy's History of Travel in Virginia. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS i X 



CHAPTER I. 
ROCK WRITINGS ON THE COAST OF MAINE, I 

CHAPTER II. 
TRACKS OF NORSEMAN LIFE IN MAINE . 24 

CHAPTER III. 

ADVENT OF CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION TO 

THE COASTS OF MAINE ... 58 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

MONHEGAN ISLAND, SUNDAY, AUGUST 9, 

1607, religious service . Frontispiece 

ROCK-TRACINGS, MONHEGAN AND DAMARIS- 

COVE ISLANDS 8 

" GLADISFEN," LINCOLN COUNTY, ON THE 

OYSTER BEDS 20 

HEART OF OYSTER-SHELL HEAP, EAST SHORE 26 
OYSTER BEDS, DAMARISCOTTA RIVER . . 28 

VIKING SHIP 41 

NEW HARBOR, SITE OF POPHAM's PORT, 1614, 

PEMAQUID POINT 70 

FORT ST. GEORGE, POPHAM COLONY, COAST 

OF MAINE, 1607 73 

FORT WILLIAM HENRY, PEMAQUID, LINCOLN 

COUNTY, MAINE 75 

MAP, SITE OF OYSTER DEPOSITS . . .76 



Ancient Voyages to the 
Western Continent. 



CHAPTER I. 

Rock Writings, Coast of Maine. 

ONE object of the historical excur- 
sion of the U. S. Steamer Mc- 
Culloch, September, 1872, under 
the administration of the Hon. E. E. 
Bourne, President of the Maine Histor- 
ical Society, was an intelligent observa- 
tion of the localities of sundry rock- 
written appearances, reported on the 
islands off the coast of Maine, in and 
about N. L. 44°, Lincoln County. 

For three generations rumor had 
floated traditions thereof on shore ; and 



2 Zlncfent Dosages to 

a little girl, a native resident of Damaris 
Cove, told Dr. Leonard Woods, of the 
Committee of Historical Research in that 
expedition, that she knew where there 
were Chinese letters on the rocks of that 
island, and undertook to lead the way 
thereto. 

It is well known that the Indians along 
the coast of Maine have made such rec- 
ords. Especially is it so with the " Mic- 
macs," * and at Pleasant Point, sea-shore 
of Machias Port, 2 and margins of Machias 
River. These are hieroglyphics. But 
there are alleged lingual tracings. It is 
to this kind of record we devote this 
discussion. Such historical data are of 
recognized authority, as intelligent re- 
mains of ages and of people past. The 
banks of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and 
Nile are fat with such relics. Tables of 
stone, plates of clay-burnt or sun-dried 
brick, lettered on the under side, burned 
into the clay moulding, were the material 
for public records by which solemn acts 

1 F. Versmile, Maine Hist. Soc. Collections, vi., p. 244, 
9 Varney's Gazetter of Maine, 



XLhc WLeetevn Continent 3 

of public interest and importance were 
preserved, and perpetuity secured, in the 
infancy of the human race. 

It was the method of writing matters 
of public importance in the Mosaic age * ; 
and when the elementary principles of 
the moral law, and of natural right and 
justice were codified and promulgated, 
they were engrossed on "two tables of 
stone." 

As late as the times of Nebuchad- 
nezzar/ Cyrus, and Xerxes, rock-writing 
was a State usage. Engraved plates of 
clay hardened in fire or the sunlight, 
were the media of the literature of solemn 
public acts and incidents in the culti- 
vated periods of Egypt, and of the 
Babylonian, Persian, and Medo-Persian 
empires ; and these remains have become 
treasuries of history to the world. 

The studies of English philology 3 have 
unearthed details of the Creation and 
Noahican flood traced on brick and stone, 
in the language of the people of one of the 
nationalities of the empire of Mmrod — 

1 1491 B.C. 2 600 B.C. 3 Smith's Researches. 



4 ancient Voyages to 

" that mighty hunter before the Lord " — 
who dwelt in Erech and Acad, dug out of 
the ruins on the plains of Shinar : records 
made when mighty Babylon and Mne- 
vah flourished in metropolitan pride and 
power, in art, agriculture, and commerce. 

Such literary remains are notable and 
important acquisitions to the treasures of 
the history of this world ; and rock- 
writings belonging to periods of infancy 
of the human race, are likely to become 
fruitful sources of truth in studies of 
history. 

North America has a rock- written his- 
tory. In New England, Virginia, and 
Ohio, there are obvious rock-written rec- 
ords of an age and race unknown. 

These are prehistoric remains. Maine, 
independent of presumed Indian scrib- 
blings, has traces of what purports to be 
a rock- written prehistoric record — apart 
from the broad arrow and other sym- 
bols of Royal possession. Differences of 
opinion exist as to the character of the 
alleged rock-written exhibits, the actual 
facts of which we propose to consider. 



Gbe TKIleetern Continent. 5 

LOCALITIES. 

In Maine our coast environments have 
ever been remarkable features to all 
ocean travellers, especially the islands, 
highland and mountain showings in N. 
L. 43° and 44°. 

FACTS. 

In 1614 Smith, from Monhegan ob- 
servations, wrote of it : " A coast all 
mountainous, with isles of huge rocks 
overgrown with all sorts of excellent 
wood for houses, boats, barks, and ships. 
All the coast," says he, " is such high 
craggy cliffs, rocks, stony isles, it is a 
wonder such great trees could grow upon 
so hard a foundation ; and the sea there, 
the strangest of fish-ponds " * ; also, 
"There are the remarkablest isles and 
mountains for l landmarks ' : Monhegan, 2 
a round high isle and close by Menanas, 
betwixt which is a small harbor, and 
Damoril's isle [now Damaris Cove] such 

1 Smith's Voyages. 

2 Monhegan derived from the Indian Wa-wenoc word, 
11 Menahan-kigan " meaning " Island in the Great Sea " or 
Great Sea Island. The other is "Men-a-nas" meaning 
Little Island. 



6 Bncfent Voyages to 

another ; then Sagadahoc, with Sutguin 
[now Seguin], and four or five isles in 
its mouth ; with mountains — those of 
Penobscot and the twinkling mountain of 
Ancocisco." 

No one who has been in these lati- 
tudes, and from the Damaris Cove archi- 
pelago taken an observation inland, will 
fail to endorse Smith's quaint and graphic 
accuracy of description. 

These remarkable points of notable 
early marine interest, have the alleged 
rock-written record. Monhegan has the 
most marked record. In 1808, the Rev. 
Dr. Jenks, of Bath, Maine, an eminent 
Oriental scholar, had the tracings on the 
rocks there brought to his observation, 
and made the facts a subject of discus- 
sion in a paper read by him before the 
American Academy of Arts and Science 
in 1851. 1 There were eighteen char- 
acters described, of which six or seven 
were claimed to be letters, and these 
Runic or Phoenician. 

On the top of the rock so scored or 

1 Frontier Missionary ', p. 246, 247. 



Gbe WLeetem Continent. 7 

written are three holes a foot apart, deep 
perforations. They are some three inches 
in diameter. The place is near a spring 
of water, and about thirty rods from the 
shore. 

The Monhegan tracings are on the 
vertical face of rock several feet long, 
and shaped like a Roman V and X, fac- 
similes of which are here given. (See 
engraving). They are uniform in size 
and arrangement, and to the eye, under a 
microscope, show artificial lines. 1 

Near the site of the ancient Sheepscott 
Farms, the New Dartmouth of the Ducal 
Province, Cornwall County, 1664, of 
Pemaquid and dependencies, early there 
were " found stones with curious inscrip- 
tions with hieroglyphics." 2 

The principal of the Damorill isles of 
antiquity, now called Damaris Cove, has 
more significant rock-writings on a hori- 
zontal face of a smooth ledge on its 
southeastern front. 

This island is the great eastern land- 

1 Bk. Telegraph 's Field-Day Excursion. 

2 Maine Historical Society Collections, vol. iv.,p. 212. 




A v 



o 



/> 







the Wleeievn tfontfnent. 9 

mark, or gateway, to the Sheepscott re- 
gion from the sea. It has ever been a 
notable marine and fishing station, and 
for three quarters of a century has had 
the reputation of having a rock-written 
history. To the touch and to the eye 
there are surface tracings, in characters, 
on a surface some ten feet square, gran- 
itic, formation. 

The wave which rebounds from the 
capes and headlands of the Biscayan 
shore must first break on the granite 
bluffs and rock-ribbed shores of Damaris 
Cove, measured by an ocean swell. From 
the northern coasts of Spain to the Da- 
marill archipelago the ocean way is clear ; 
and in 1602, on the waters of the inter- 
vening landfall of the main, — called 
Mavooshan, — Biscay shallops, sailed by 
natives in European vestments, w r ere 
met by Gosnold. 

Of the Monhegan Island rock- writings 
it was early claimed six or seven char- 
acters are lingual representatives of 
Kunic or Phoenician origin. 1 

^Frontier Missionary, pp. 246, 247. 



to Bncient Wogages to 



The Daraaris Cove characters are like 
tracings. Impression much abraded, and 
weather-worn and fragmentary. Inter- 
vening and connecting parts are gone. 
Sometimes a single character of an effaced 
group only remains. One is sigmoid, a 
foot long and an inch in diameter. If 
lingual characters of any age or race, the 
entire showing to the eye is a group of 
relics of letters or tracings, with here 
and there a nearly perfect impression, 
severed from its lingual relations by 
weather-worn abrasion. There are angu- 
lar and cuneiform outliaes, with curvi- 
linear combinations. In aspect all is 
Oriental. 

The first and best-defined character is 
deeply cut, rising from the edge and 
across the granitic face ; florescent in out- 
line ; suggestive of a rude " fleur-de- 
lis." 1 Above, on the same surface, are 
cuneiform characters. To the left is a 
squid-shaped figure. 

The sigmoid is the only survivor of 

1 The florescent cut may be a French norman, symbol, or 
character. 



Zhe Western Continent, n 

an utterly effaced group. One is anchor- 
shaped. There are double-wedged char- 
acters also. 

SOLUTION. 

There can be but two theories of 
origin : one traceable to an artificial, in- 
telligent, and historic agency ; and the 
other to natural and crystalline causes, — 
the one an intelligent cause and the 
other accidental and natural. 

Shall we look to human agencies ? 
This raises the question of probable oc- 
casion and opportunity. If lingual char- 
acters, these records are of probable 
marine import and origin. 

What maritime occurrences in the past 
aiford possible and probable cause ? 

There can now be no doubt of Ice- 
landic and Northmen visits and settle- 
ments, more than a thousand years ago, 
in New England. Runic records on 
stone and on parchment settle the 
tradition as a fact on ordinary rules of 
evidence, and French authority suggests 
"Norumbegua" to have been a North- 
man sedentary abode, between Mark- 



t2 ancient Dosages to 



land and Vineland, and all antiquity 
locates this waif of history east of the 
Kennebec. Deighton Rock and Monhe- 
gan, may, therefore, bear record of North- 
man foot-falls on and along the shores of 
Maine and New England. 

But I propose to go back of North- 
man adventure. There are facts, I think, 
warranting such a retrospection in search 
of a solution of these possible rock- writ- 
ten exhibits. 

It is historic truth that Phoenician set- 
tlements, 1 beyond the Mediterranean Sea, 
began in the remotest antiquity, and at 
least fifteen hundred years before the 
Christian era. The Phoenicians, a branch 
of the Semitic or Aramean race whose 
Phoenicia, their home-land, was limited 
to the coasts of the Mediterranean, a hun- 
dred and twenty miles in length by 
thirty in depth, — a section of the east 
shores of that sea notable for its bays, 
promontories, harbors, islands, and forests, 
— a region stored with material for ships — 
were famed for ship-building and seaman- 

1 Heerne's Researches, vol. ii., p. 37. 



tbe TKflestent Continent 13 

ship. "Sidon," its principal city, was 
the prolific mother of marine adventure 
and colonial planting of which Tyre was 
a distinguished daughter, which, in 
metropolitan wealth, power, and pride, 
eclipsed all contemporaries. 

Her ships and seamen carried the 
maritime art to the highest perfection of 
their age ; and in their voyages made 
foreign discoveries, and gave to maritime 
adventure a wider scope than the Vene- 
tians or Genoese of the Middle Ages. 

Phoenician fleets were numerous and 
plowed the Indian seas and the Atlantic 
Ocean as well. The Tyrian flag * waved 
at the same time along the shores of 
Britain, and in the harbors of Ceylon ! 
The Phoenicians were a colonizing people 
as well as maritime explorers. 

Tradition has floated down from re- 
motest antiquity evidence of the progress 
of this people in maritime and colonial 
undertakings westward, pushing their 
voyages into the Atlantic. Joseph us 2 

1 Heerne's Researches. 

2 Josephus, Apion, p. 582. 



i4 Bttcfetit leases to 



tells us this people made " long voyages 
over sea." 

Between the reign of David of Israel 
and Cyrus, King of Persia, Tyre had be- 
come the metropolis of Phoenician com- 
merce, if not of the world ; and had 
reached the zenith of commercial wealth 
and power in the world. Her ships had 
pushed their voyages through the Straits 
of Gibraltar, and also colonized Memphis 
in Egypt. 

Pharaoh Necho 1 caught the maritime 
inspiration of his Phoenician subjects, 
undertook to make Egypt a commercial 
power, dug a canal between the Nile 
and Arabian Gulf, fitted and sent a 
Phoenician fleet with orders to sail down 
the African shores around the Cape of 
Good Hope, and return to Egypt by 
way of the Mediterranean. This voyage 
was so performed in a three years' 
cruise. But his maritime enterprises 
were cut short by the invasion of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, King of Babylon, and in a 

1 This king was a man of great commercial enterprise, 
a great ship-builder. 



Zbe Mestem Continent 15 

battle on the Euphrates, at Circisium, 
Pharaoh Necho was slain. But Phoeni- 
cian sailors pressed their vocation with 
skill and fortitude, opening up new and 
foreign sources of trade in mineral 
wealth abroad, ending in the earliest 
gold fever of which we have record. 

Eumored gold and silver deposits on 
the shores of Spain early attracted the 
merchants and sailors of Tyre. Being 
the commercial emporium of the world, 
she as mistress 1 of the seas took lead in 
colonial adventure. Nothing can bet- 
ter illustrate the eminence of Tyre than 
the sketchings of Ezekiel in the scrip- 
ture record of his Prophecies : 

" Thou art situated at the entry of the sea, a 
merchant for the people of the isles ; all the 
ships of the sea, with their mariners, were at her 
wharves occupied with her merchandise. Ships 
planked with boards of the fir trees of Senir : 
masted with cedars of Lebanon. Oaks of Ba- 
shan furnished oars, and benches of ivory were 
for seats ; fine linen of Egypt were for sails ; and 
blue and purple colors for paint." 2 

1 Tyre and Sidon rivals, 1448 B.C. 
3 Ezekiel, xxvii., 2, 5, 7, 8, 12. 



i6 Bncfent tDogages to 



Her great men were ship-masters. 
"Thy wise men, O Tyrus, were thy 
pilots," cried the prophet. Tarshish was 
her port of abounding wealth in silver, 
iron, tin, and lead, freighted in the blue 
and purple ships of her commerce. Such 
is the Biblical record of Tyre prior to 
the Alexandrian conquests. Voyages 
to and fro from the gold and silver de- 
posits of Southern Spain greatly enriched 
Tyre. It is recorded that the first dis- 
coveries of the mineral wealth of Tarshish 
so abounded that marvellous freights of 
precious treasure rewarded Phoenician 
enterprise in Southern Spain. 

Heerne's Researches record that the 
Phoenician barks were not only laden to 
the water's edge, but their very anchors 
were made of silver. 

The ore 1 was open to view, and arti- 
ficial mining was not necessary to the 
gathering of freight. The natives were 
ignorant of the value of their silvered 
soil. They melted and manufactured 
the lustrous matter into household ves- 

1 Carthage colonized some 900 b. c. 



tTbe Weetevn Continent* 17 

sels, arms, and wares. Then Spain was 
the Peru of antiquity. The surface 
product of silver was soon exhausted. 
Mining followed. The Tertesian mines 
were rich in precious ores. Shafts were 
sunk ; subterranean waters were expelled 
by machinery. Spain a thousand years 
before Christ was esteemed the richest 
country for silver in the world. Its soil 
also abounded in gold. Mineral treas- 
ures here attracted and stimulated Phoe- 
nician commerce westward, which also 
planted colonial possession at the west- 
ern terminals of Phoenician voyages. 

Fleets of Phoenician merchantmen 
were thus enticed to Atlantic waters; 
and soon the blue and purple ships of 
Tyre were seen gliding between the 
rocks of Culpa and Abyla, the Pillars 
of Hercules — the gates of the Straits of 
Gibraltar, pushing trade, discovery, and 
colonial holdings, unto the islands of the 
great ocean. Outside the log-books of 
Phoenician voyagers, the Straits of Gib- 
raltar, then called the Pillars of Hercules, 
were the " gates ajar " to an unknown 



1 8 Bncfent IDogages to 



world of waters. But the Phoenicians 
had uncovered the shores of the Atlantic, 
and found a commercial site there, 
where they established the great centre 
of Atlantic Ocean trade, and fitted 
fleets to encounter the perils of Atlantic 
navigation. " Tertesius " — the Tarshish 
of Scripture — had been colonized by 
Phoenician seamen and merchants, on 
the shores of the south of Spain. Thence 
they pushed up the Atlantic coasts, and 
made lodgment on an island within a 
great, well-sheltered bay, where they 
harbored their fleets for refuge in At- 
lantic storms; and out of this Atlantic 
harbor of refuge grew up the city of 
" Gades," 1 the Cadiz of to-day. It soon 
became the metropolis of Atlantic com- 
merce, where voyages were made up for 
the tin islands and amber trade of the 
Northwest. 

From six to nine hundred years before 
the Christian era, the Atlantic waters off 
Spain, up the coast, and about the islands 
of the British seas, were crowded with 

1 Date see Darby, B.C. noo. 



Gbe WicBtcvn Continent 19 

Phoenician fleets of merchant and fisher- 
men ; and out of the commercial activi- 
ties of Phoenician ocean adventure here, 
the sea was forced to yield up its treas- 
ures at Malaca, 1 (the present city of 
Malaga of Spain,) which was a city 
thereafter noted for trade in fish, and 
for its " export 2 of large quantities of 
excellent salt-fish." It became the fish- 
market of the world, — an eminence it re- 
tained down to the period of the colonial 
fishing era of the coasts of Maine, when 
cargoes taken at Monhegan and the 
Pemaquid dependencies were carried to 
Malaga for market, as well as natives of 
Maine for slaves. 3 

During the centuries in which silver, 
gold, tin, lead, iron, and fish were freighted 
from the Atlantic into and up the Medi- 
terranean to Tyre and Carthage, it is 
hardly possible but that some of the 
blue and purple ships of these Phoenician 
voyagers should have been forced across 
the Atlantic, in the latitude of the Bis- 

1 1110 B.C. 2 Heerne's Researches, vol. ii., p. 217. 

3 Smith's Voyages, 1614. 



20 Bncfent Xfroya$es to 



cay an shores, and thrown on the coast 
of Maine, in the Grosnold landfall of 
1602, of the country of the Mavooshans, 
where Biscay shallops were found in 
the hands of natives of that country by 
English navigators. 

Tradition speaks of a large island in 
the Atlantic, beyond the Straits of Gib- 
raltar, in Phoenician possession. 

Had accident driven a single Phoeni- 
cian ship to the coasts of America, the 
discoveries made would not have been 
turned to public account. This sea- 
going race studiously concealed their At- 
lantic possessions ; and all was shaded 
in song relating to their discoveries be- 
yond the sea. It is more than possible 
some of the blue and purple ships of 
Tyre or Carthage, in their course to the 
tin and lead mines of Britain for freight, 
may have been forced across the ocean 
and cast on the opposite shores of New 
England, by the same course Grosnold 
was wafted across the ocean to the shores 
of Mavooshan in 1602; and if so, the 
usual national methods of record of so 



Gbe TKHestern Continent, 21 

important an event would have been 
made on the rocks of the shores of the 
landing by Phoenician sailors, perhaps 
castaways. 

Gasper Cortereal cleared from Lisbon 
a.d. 1501, with two ships, crossed the 
Atlantic, touched Newfoundland, thence 
steered south and landed on shores 
abounding in forests of ship timber, 
whose waters were stocked with codfish, 
with large rivers opening to the sea. 
Here he found silver ear-rings in native 
hands and the fragment of a gilded 
sword, and, kidnapping more than fifty 
natives, sailed for Lisbon. 

The face of the country so ravished, 
its products, on sea and shore, shadow the 
coast-line of Maine subtended by the 
twiukling mountains of Aucocisco and 
the Penobscot Highlands. 

The above facts indicate a prehistoric, 
accidental or otherwise, European advent 
to this section of the shores of Maine, of 
Phoenician, as well as Northman adven- 
ture. Hence, the rock- written waifs of 
history on the islands of the gulf of 



22 Bncient Dogages to 

Maine, may be of discovery or of ship- 
wreck. 

Out of the wreck (possibly) of letters 
on Damaris Cove, a few are perfect in 
outline. 

The circumstances we have developed 
may be threads to unravel the mystery 
of the artificial tracings or markings on 
the rocks of Damaris Cove, as well as the 
alleged Scandinavian, or Northman char- 
acters, on Monhegan. 

The facts conceded as to the rock- 
tracings described, the deduction is 
obvious. They point to possible conclu- 
sions. On the Monhegan rock, the marks 
are angular. Those on Damaris Cove are 
compound, and combine cuneiform and 
curvilinear. As compared with aborig- 
inal rock records, they are more complex, 
less pictoral or hieroglyphical. 

There are no sufficiently perfect com- 
binations in the wreck of letters, (if let- 
ters they are,) to afford basis for intelli- 
gent interpretation, beyond symbolic 
significance. They may be waifs of an 
age and race in oblivion — an untold 



Zhe Western Continent 23 

maritime catastrophe — relics of a history 
lost; and are possible footprints not of 
Northman visits alone but of Phoenician 
adventure here. 



CHAPTER II. 

Tracks of Norseman Life in Maine — Shell-heaps of 
Damariscotta River — Norse Kitchen Remains on Glid- 
den Farm, Lincoln County. 

SITE. 

DAMAEISCOTTA RIVER is an 
inlet of the sea, inland off Mon- 
hegan Island, in the County of 
Lincoln ; an effluent of the tide- waters of 
Pemaquid, expanded into a shallow bay 
or basin above the flow of the Salt-water 
Falls, at the foot of a fifty-foot fresh- water 
cascade, over which a great lake above, 
embracing the waters of Muscongus and 
Damariscotta Lakes rush to reach the 
salt sea below. The Indians called the 
site, with its environment, "Ped-auk-go- 
wack," 1 " place of thunder." 

1 Indian deed to Walter Philips. 
24 



Gbe Wicetctn Continent. 25 

Popham colonists wrote of this river. 
They called it u Ta-mes-cot,'' 1 embodying 
native sounds, descriptive of the food 
resources of its waters. 

The Indian said of it : " Na-mas- 
coota " 2 : " fish water place." The Penob- 
scots still call it " Ma-dainas-couta," as 
Sabattis interprets it : u Many fish (ale- 
wices) water." 

Father Rasle, 3 in Jesuit Relations, 
records " that during a month fish ascend 
in such numbers, one could fill fifty 
thousand barrels a day, could the labor 
be endured — the fish crowding one upon 
another, a foot deep." 

DEPOSIT OF SHELLS. 

They are heaped chiefly in marginal 
aggregation, along the shores of the 
outlet of the basin described, near the 
" Salt-water Falls," so called at the 
meeting of the bay above, with the 
tide waters below, on both shores. 

1 Gilbert's Relation, Mass. Hist. Col. , xviii. 

2 Portland Advertiser, Apl. 22, 1870. 

3 Jesuit Relations, p. 37, A.D. 1724. 



26 Bncient IDogages to 



The shells are chiefly of the oyster in 
mature condition, and of very large size. 
Gilbert of the Popham Colony wrote 
home in 1607, "their men found oysters 
there, nine inches long, and heard of 
others twice as big." The nine-inch 
oyster was a shell-fish of the river, " Ta- 
mes-cot," and the bigger ones in a river 
near on the other side, i. e., the Sheeps- 
cott, where big fat fellows still grow. 

The shells are horizontally disposed, 
shell on shell, ends to the shore. 1 They 
are seldom found in pairs, but laying on 
the side instead of on edge, shell within 
shell. 

There is a central heap on the east 
shore, back of high-water mark, left as 
if rolled in a mighty wave, thirty odd 
feet deep, oval shaped, terraced with 
smaller heaps, from five to fifteen feet 
diameter, as seen in 1859. This ridge 
has since been dug over for grinding up 
the shells into hen-food. High-water 
mark was found to be the base-line of the 
shell heaps on both shores of the outlet. 

1 Lewiston Journal ', September 4, 1886. 




HEART OF THE OYSTER-SHELL BED, DAMARISCOTTA 
RIVER, LINCOLN COUNTY, MAINE. 



XLbc xrateetern Continent. 27 

On the west, the shells are piled from 
the water-line at a sharp angle, twenty- 
five to thirty feet, showing nearly a 
vertical fall, the shells horizontally dis- 
posed, shell lying in shell, layer on layer, 
no shells mated, quite perfect in condi- 
tion. 

This deposit is interleaved with dark, 
rich vegetable mould, indicating lapse of 
periods of time intervening, sufficient to 
make a few inches of soil. 

An arched tunnel for twenty-five feet 
by three in diameter had been cut into 
the deposit on the west shore side, and 
disclosed only shells in different stages of 
decay, bleached on the surface, cream 
colored and friable beneath. Many shell 
mounds are distributed over the entire 
shell-covered area of the peninsula of the 
west shore of the outlet of the bay or 
basin, at the foot of the great falls of 
" Ped-auk-go-wack." 

" The great heaps are made up of the 
oyster, exclusively. The shells are of 
extraordinary size, and belong to a vari- 
ety not much found on this coast, the 



28 Bnctent Dosages to 



long-necked species. The heaps are im- 
mense in size, covering acres." 1 

GEOLOGICAL MEASUEE. 

These shell deposits were measured 
by Dr. Jackson in 1838 for his geological 
survey of Maine, and his official report 
makes them " one hundred and eight 
rods long by eighty to one hundred 
wide, and twenty-five or six feet deep ; 
making not less than forty-four million, 
nine hundred and six thousand cubic 
feet." 2 

EELICS, INDUSTEIAL AND KITCHEN. 

In and throughout these deposits are 
bits of charcoal, bones of fish and ani- 
mals, and of the human frame ; stone 
hatchets, chisels, and deep-sea sinkers; 
bone stilettos, and tools of art and the 
chase; pottery, sometimes ornamented; 
and even lumps of clay, the nucleus of 
full shaped vessels, in places where the 
industry seemed to have had its plant, 

1 Prof. F. W. Putnam. 

2 Dr. Jackson, Geological Report, 1838, 3d vol., pp. 
57, 58. 



Zbe Western Continent 29 

together with a section of what may 
have served as a potter's wheel, shaped 
from the vertebrae of a large whale. 

HUMAN BONES. 

" These are whole as if buried in this heap and 
appear to have been buried here since the heap 
was finished, and are not more than five feet from 
the surface. There appears in this heap a cer- 
tain line of leaf mould and broken shells, with 
scattering spots of ashes like the remains of 
camp-fires, and this line can be traced nearly 
around the heap as it stands to-day when the 
shells are damp. Below this line the shells ap- 
pear older. All other lines thus far can only be 
traced a short distance. This continuous line is 
composed of much the same substance as the 
surface, at the present day, which would indicate 
that this heap at one time was abandoned, per- 
haps for centuries ; and to further prove that a 
period of time elapsed after the shells were de- 
posited below this line and before the shells were 
commenced above the line. The pottery frag- 
ments below this line are not so well finished as 
above, and the rim of the pottery from below 
stands almost up straight, while that above the 
rim rolls out and is sometimes ornamented on 
the inside of the rim." ' 

1 Report, Lewiston Journal, Sept. 4, 1886. Field Day, 
Maine Historical Society. 



30 Bttcfent Voyages to 



AGE OF THE HEAPS. 

There is uncertainty about it. " They 
may be a thousand years old, certainly 
over two hundred," says Professor Morse. 
He adds : " Earliest views of shell-heaps 
were that they are natural deposits, and 
evidence of the upheaval of coast lines," 
i. e.j incidents of geological action. 

But investigation has proven them to 
be the work of men. " They are," says 
the Professor, (as he stood among these 
shell-heaps with the committee of the 
Maine Historical Society,) "the refuse- 
piles of early man — his back-yard. 
These ancients had dogs. These dogs 
ate remnants of the feast. Bird's skele- 
tons found in the shell-heaps are precisely 
those parts a dog will not eat ; while the 
missing parts of the skeleton are the deli- 
cate ribs and skull which a dog eats," 
adds this scientist. 

Says Morse: "These heaps were 
made by a race of cannibals. 1 Many 

1 •' The people told our men of cannibals near Sagadahoc, 
. . . but they saw them not. " — Pop ham's Voyage, A. D. 
1607. Purchase, London Ed., 1614. Mass. Hist. Coll., 
vol xviii., p. 116. 



Gbe IKflestern Continent, 31 

human bones are found with other bones. 
They resemble bones of Eskimo, in the 
skull. Recent deposits may have bones 
of the Indian, or even of white men. 
But those found with the relics of ex- 
tinct races of animals, and polished im- 
plements in the lower strata, make it 
certain these heaps were begun by pre- 
historic man? 

The Professor adds : " The revelation 
of these shell-heaps gives us faint 
glimpses of the great antiquity of man." 
And then he suggests : " They oblige us 
to carry back the Garden of Eden three 
or four thousand years at least," 1 a 
theory we believe to be neither necessary 
nor tenable. 

ETHNICAL EELATION. 

It seems to me the ethnical and archaeo- 
logical findings of our latest investiga- 
tions among these oyster heaps of shells 
with our earliest historical relations are 
adequate to a rational solution of the 

1 Professor Morse, Lecture before Maine Historical 
Society. Lewiston Journal, Sept. 4, 1886. 



32 Bncient Voy&Qee to 



problem of human life and history in the 
premises. 

This offal is inland, not far from 
Pemaquid, and are the remains of a de- 
parted race in Lincoln County. 

The seat and centre of a possible em- 
pire here, rebuts all merely hypothetical 
conclusions antedating current received 
data of human life. We need no merely 
speculative theories to reach more than 
rational conclusions. 

Professor Putnam, after an exhaustive 
examination of the shell-heaps in ques- 
tion, says : " It is within twenty-five or 
thirty years that a thorough understand- 
ing of the structure of these shell-heaps 
has been reached. Within that time 
similar heaps (found in Denmark) were ex- 
tensively studied." The Danes call these 
heaps " Kjoekken-Moeddings," meaning 
" kitchen refuse." " They are simply 
food relics of a people living on the 
spot." Thus the shell-heaps of Damaris- 
cotta River, Lincoln County, in structure 
and in internal features and contents, re- 
semble those on the coasts of Denmark. 



XLbc tmestern Continent 33 

The presumption is that "Kjoekken- 
Moeddings " lay about the headwaters of 
Damariscotta River, and to science are a 
discovery of Norse remains. Professor 
Morse finds in the deposits relics of pre- 
historic (and seems to intimate) evidence 
of "preadamite ages." 

Indeed, he suggested traces of millen- 
ary periods of human life. 

Professor Putnam, on the other hand, 
tells us, on the same data, " Kjoekken- 
Moeddings" are the growth of people 
who live on the place. 1 

These hypotheses are theories, and 
may be rebutted by facts. 

DEDUCTIONS. 

There are many facts in the history of 
early maritime movements from the north 
of Europe which will tend to explain all 
the phenomena of human life in the 
building up of these heaps. They are 
now conceded to be food-offal of human 
eaters. They may be prehistoric and 

1 Putnam's Lecture, before Maine Historical Society, 
Portland. 
3 



54 Bncient Worses to 



bear traces of cannibalism in the earlier 
strata, founded on the fact that human 
bones, mashed and broken so as to relieve 
the marrow, to be sucked for food, have 
been found here and there. 

The antiquity of the remains is also 
conceded, showing three definite periods 
of aggregation, the barbaric age of bone 
tools, then of stone manufacture, then of 
metallic copper. 

Dr. Jackson found not only bone stil- 
ettos, but a knife with a copper blade, 
in the ashes of the buried dead, and cop- 
per beads and breast-plates, or broaches, 
have been dug up by others. The bone 
daggers and the copper knife and orna- 
ments or shields have each a history of 
their own, and the stone chisels, gouges, 
and deep-sea sinkers and whalebone disk, 
also a separate race history in succession. 

The pottery suggests mechanical in- 
dustry, a potter's wheel, skill, art, taste, 
in the race engaged in some age of this 
shell-heap building. Before the times of 
Alexander the Great, in the days of Eze- 
kiel and Jeremiah of the Hebrews, the 



tbc Weetexn Continent 35 

potter's wheel was known and used. 
The pottery of the Lincoln County shell 
heaps is remarkable for skill in execution 
and lineal accuracy. The lines of curvi- 
ture are perfect, and indicate the vessels 
were formed on a potter's machine by 
skilled hands. Deep-sea industries seem 
to have flourished here and before lead 
and iron came into use. Sea-fisheries 
were pursued by the builders and dwell- 
ers among these heaps, including the 
whale. Seafaring habits are palpable 
features of the oyster-eating dwellers at 
the " Kjoekken-Moeddings " of the Da- 
mariscotta River at some periods of the 
shell-heap aggregation, and show that 
seafaring men had a hand in their struc- 
ture. Bearing traces of Norse manipula- 
tion, they may not antedate the opening 
of the Christian era. 

THE COUNTRY. 

It belonged to the Mavooshan land- 
fall of the Gosnold voyage of 1602, and 
history warrants the conclusion that it 
had a sufficient density of population 



36 Bncient linages to 



resident to preclude the hypothesis of cm 
age of aggregation back of the period 
of Northman adventurers along North 
American shores. 

EAELT VIKING VOYAGES. 

It is now a fact conceded, that the 
coasts of Norway and Denmark have 
seen early and remarkable departures 
for extraordinary marine adventure west ; 
and that the sea-kings of antiquity em- 
barked in search of and for seizure of 
western landfalls ; and I think we have 
records making it possible that the food- 
oifal of the shell-heaps in question may 
be the result of Northman settlement. 
If so, we have a rational solution of the 
problem of human life and history in the 
oyster shell-heaps of Newcastle and 
Damariscotta. 

In general features these shell-heaps 
are identical with like deposits on the 
Northman shores. They are phases of 
human life in Norse habitations of ages 
past in Europe. If Norse kitchen offal 
there, why not Norse kitchen offal here ? 



tbe Western Continent 37 

HISTORICAL POINTS. 

The latest historical studies in Europe 
and in America show that a thousand 
years after Christ colonial adventurers 
from north of Europe reached New Eng- 
land. French and Scandinavian antiqua- 
ries agree that Northman colonies dotted 
North American shores from Greenland 
toVineland. 

It is now conceded that these remark- 
able oyster-shell deposits are offal food 
of human eaters — the objection to the 
inferences of such a fact has been the 
question of sufficient populousness of the 
region, which we think the story of the 
Vikings will rebut. 

They may be prehistoric remains and 
bear indices of cannibalism in the earlier 
strata, as suggested by some scientists. 

The antiquity of the remains must be 
conceded, but, if prehistoric, we think 
not necessarily preadamite, nor the ag- 
gregation of indefinite periods of long 
ages of nomadic life and labor. 

We think they are the possible re- 



3§ indent HJogages td 



mains of a resident populousness within 
the known limits of colonial adventure, 
on New England shores. 

The most reliable scientific and ethni- 
cal suggestions by Professor Morse, show 
in these shell-heaps marked, traces of the 
manipulation of Northmen handling, if 
not of such origin. This being conceded, 
their accumulation does not antedate 
the opening of the Christian Era. The 
region of these shell-heaps history war- 
rants us in believing, was the locale of 
a sufficient density of resident populous- 
ness of " the Eastern parts," as to pre- 
clude the hypotheses of an age of aggre- 
gation back of Northman advent, to 
North American shores. 

It is a fact demonstrated also, that 
Norwegian coast shores, and of Denmark 
too, have seen early and extraordinary 
departures of maritime adventure, whence 
the sea-kings of antiquity embarked in 
search of Western discovery. 

What records have we making possi- 
ble such accumulated relics of food-offal 
as the shell-heaps of Damariscotta and 



ttbe Wceicxn Continent. 39 

Newcastle and as the result of Northern 
European immigration and settlement 
here, solving the problem of human life 
and history in the oyster shell-heaps of 
the Damariscotta waters? 

We answer : the general features of 
the shell-heaps on Glidden Farm at the 
Damariscotta head waters are shown to 
be identical with like remains found now 
on the coasts of Norway and Denmark. 
Throughout they show a Northman 
phase of human life and habit. 

Just such heaps exist on the coast 
shores of Denmark. They are called 
"Kjoekken Moedding," meaning "kitchen 
refuse," there. Moreover, it is now a well- 
settled conclusion of the latest and best 
studies of history, that, as early as a.d. 
1000, colonial adventure from the north 
of Europe reached New England, and 
made lodgment to a greater or less ex- 
tent in sedentary holdings alongshore. 

French and Scandinavian antiquarians 
seem to agree that there were Northmen 
colonies from Greenland to Vineland. 



40 Undent iDog&ges ta 



NORSE SEA STOKIES. 

A.D. 1400 the Zeni brothers, Vene- 
tian seamen, on a western course from 
Europe, struck the shores of a country 
called " Dro-eo." It first became known 
to fishermen of the " Faroe Isles," who 
had been driven to the Dro-eo-an coasts 
by storm at sea. 

The story is, that the barbarians of 
Dro-eo killed the storm-tossed fishermen, 
all but one. He was enslaved and finally 
escaped. He described the land of his 
servitude to be a large country full of 
savage inhabitants. 

As early as a.d. 999 Norwegian sea- 
men had visited our shores. Leif, a Nor- 
wegian sea-rover, purchased a western 
coaster of Bierne, another Northman sea- 
king who had returned from a western 
voyage in which he had sighted land east 
of Cape Cod. 1 

Lief manned and equipped his ship 

1 Here is a picture of the Viking ship sent over from Nor- 
way for exhibition at Chicago. It is an exact counterpart 
of an ancient vessel exhumed some years ago in southern 
Norway. In such a strange craft sailed Eric the Red, the 



Gbe Wicstctn Continent 



41 



for a fuller and further search of Bierne's 
landfall. He sailed and made Newfound- 
land, cast anchor, landed, and named 
it Hellu-land from its rocky superfices, 
its shores being covered with flat stones. 




-t~^ -r#"4 -' 



THE VIKING SHIP. 

Taking his departure he steered west- 
ward still in the track of Bierne's dis- 
coveries and struck a low coast, shores 
of white sand, well wooded. The great 

Norwegian mariner, who, it is alleged, discovered this 
continent before Columbus landed with his caravels. 

The vessel is 75 feet long, 15^ feet beam, and has a draft 
of 3^ feet. She is built entirely of oak and is caulked with 
cow's hair. Small though she is, Captain Magnus Ander- 
sen and his picked crew of twelve Norsemen weathered 
some rough gales in her on his trip to America. 



42 Bncient tDogaaes to 



woods led him to name the new country 
" Mark-land," now Nova Scotia. Ke-em- 
barking he bore away southwest and in 
two days made an island, and landed 
again. 1 

It seemed a pleasant country, and he 
determined to winter in it and make a 
settlement. He built houses and called 
the settlement Lief s Bu-dir or Lief-boro. 

From an inland tramp one of his North- 
men returned with clusters of wild grapes. 
This incident suggested a name and he 
called the country, Vineland. 

The antecedent voyages and discov- 
eries of Bierne and Eric, Norwegian 
and Icelandic sailors, had informed 
northern Europe of a well-wooded coun- 
try, south and west of Greenland, which 
had excited the enterprise and commer- 
cial interest of Northman adventure, now 
fixed, on colonial possession west. 

Lief's Buidir colony returned home 
with the news of their Vineland success, 
and in a.d. 1004 Lief's brother, Thor. 

1 Monhegan Island, Williamson, Maine Historical Soc. 
Transactions. July number, 1891, pp. 260-3. 



Gbe Western Continent 43 

wald, borrowed his ship for a visit to 
Liefs Vineland Buidir. He arrived 
safely, and in the interest of discovery 
further north and east, Thorwald made 
sail, and finally cast anchor under a pro- 
montory of hills and high woods. The 
face of the newly discovered eastern 
country excited his admiration, and be- 
got a desire here to colonize. 

The best historical authorities, descrip- 
tive of Thorwald's eastern landfall, show, 
that in his large ship he sailed north, 
doubled Cape Cod, skirted the shores of 
his north-bound course, crossing inlets, 
till he struck " a projecting promontory 
covered with wood," which charmed the 
eye of the viking for a colonial home. 1 Dr. 
Kohl translates the record that Thorwald 
sailed from the Cape toward the main- 
land, till he cast anchor " under a hilly 
promontory, overgrown with wood." 
These topographical incidents correspond 
with Gosnold's landfall, " an outpoint of 
rising ground, covered with tall straight 
trees, in a background of little round 

1 Frost's Pictoral History U. S. 



44 ancient Dosages to 



green hills inland in lat. 43° N." Un- 
fortunately, the Northman chief here 
met the natives, and killed eight, and 
saw countless multitudes. A pitched 
battle followed. They fought with 
bows and arrows long and fiercely, 
but suddenly retreated. These men 
were watermen, and took to canoes in 
their retreat ; and this battle of the high- 
land wooded outpoint, or cape head- 
land ended, leaving the Northmen in 
possession. But their chief, calling in 
his men, cried : " I am wounded. I have 
an arrow under my arm. It will be my 
death ! " So on this hill-topped shore of 
high woods stretching into the sea, which 
had charmed the eye of Thorwald, and in- 
spired his colonial hopes for homestead- 
holdings north and east of Cape Cod and 
Vineland, with its Buidir plantations, he 
died, and was buried. 

The country of Thorwald's battle- 
ground is the point of interest. The 
hillock headlands and high woods of a 
sea-projecting promontory are peculiarly 
Maine coast features between Cape Eliza- 



Gbe limeetern Continent 45 

beth and Penobscot. French Normans 
continued to follow the ocean track of 
their Northmen ancestors, advanced their 
settlements alongshore in Hellu-land, 
Markland, and intervening Norumbegua 
to Vineland, it is asserted. 

Such is the French idea of Northman 
empire in New England, with strong sup- 
porting facts, in the cartographic history 
of Dr. Kohl. 

The shell-heaps of the Damariscotta 
River are within the anciently defined 
limits of Norumbegua of the coasts of 
Maine ; and, it is not unlikely, Thorwald's 
battle-ground and grave may have been, 
probably was, on this coast-shore of Maine, 
between Agamenticus and Mount Desert. 
Indeed, the tall, tree-covered, rising 
ground of an outpoint ahead in the land- 
fall of the Gosnold voyage of 1602, with 
its little round green hills inland, a pro- 
montory of " Mavooshan," about Saga- 
dahoc, may have been the promontory of 
hills and high woods that caught the eye 
and charmed the desire of Thorwald for 
a western home six centuries before the 



46 Bncient Dosages to 



Gosnold advent. The topographical in- 
cidents in the narratives of each are 
alike. 

But the fact of pertinent interest is 
is the disclosure of the resident populous- 
ness of the country east of Cape Cod, 
and possible location of Northman visits 
in proximity to the Damariscotta. 

Williamson says : " The eastern coun- 
try, when originally discovered, was full 
of inhabitants" 

Gorges has made record that in the 
discoveries of 1602-1604 these coasts 
were very populous. The inhabitants 
were stout and war-like. In the section 
occupied by the English in their first 
settlement (Sagadahoc and Pemaquid) 
the civil government was monarchical. 
The people seemed eminent above other 
natives of the region, the neighboring 
chiefs holding something like feudal 
relations to the Bashaba's authority, fur- 
nishing some a thousand to fifteen hun- 
dred bowmen. 

The country of this king was called 
" Mo-a-shan " — the Mavooshan of his- 



Gbe Wicetcin Continent. 47 

tory — the landfall of Gosnold in 1602, 
the seat of the English colonial town 
of Fort St. George, of Popham colonial 
holdings in a.d. 1607, and also of Popham's 
Port of a.d. 1614 at Pemaquid, described 
by Capt. John Smith. If not Thorwald, 
Gosnold discovered it ; Weymouth sur- 
veyed it for places, " fit and convenient 
for colonization " ; and Popham seized 
and settled the country, so discovered 
and surveyed in English right, in more 
than one place} 

Gorges tells us it had a king styled 
Bashaba ; and that his own chief abode 
was not far from Pemaquid. 

These records are of the best histori- 
cal authority, and clearly indicate that 
there was a seat of empire near Pema- 
quid in 1607. It must have been a 
royal site, the capital of the kingdom of 
Mavooshan. 

The oyster offal of the shell-heaps of 
Damariscotta head of tide waters, are in- 
land, not far from Pemaquid, above, and 
in the same hydrographical relations 

1 New England Charter, 1620. 



48 Bncient Dogagea to 



within the country of Gosnold's Mavoo- 
shan. 

They are monuments of a past concen- 
tration of human home life, and belong 
to the ancient jurisdiction of Pemaquid, 
declared by Strachey, the earliest chroni- 
cler of colonial undertakings in the re- 
gions, " to be a Kingdom in latitude 44° 
wherein the Colony of Popham was 
Settled." 

The native race of this region at and 
near Pemaquid, in 1605, were whale-men, 
expert in the practice and the methods of 
the Northmen in the pursuit, capture, and 
killing of the whale * ; and also in utiliz- 
ing the economic resources of this monster 
of the seas. 

The populousness of the ancient " East- 
ern Parts," as seen and attested by the 
earliest records, show the fact that there 
was a kingdom, with a sovereign and 
capital abode, near Pemaquid. This fact 
tends to solve, we think, the problem 
of the ruins of a mighty exotic race at 

1 Resier, Weymouth' s Voyage. 



Gbe Western Continent. 49 

and about these shell-heaps. The seat 
and centre of a probable empire, though 
in the relics and ruins of abandoned 
homes, rebut all hypothetical conclu- 
sions, antedating currently received data 
of human life here. We need no long- 
drawn inferences to solve the aggrega- 
tion of offal remains of human eaters at 
Damariscotta, and Newcastle, Lincoln 
Co., Maine. 

That the thousands of bowmen at 
the official centre from time to time with 
residents at and about the chief abode 
of the king of the country, would pile 
up oyster offal within definite limits of 
centuries past, and of the viking era, 
equal to what we find in the shell-heaps 
in question, is a fair presumption. 

The historical data collated, certainly 
tends to show density of resident popu- 
lation, colonial it may be and of exotic 
origin, sufficent to account for the remains, 
prehistoric or otherwise, at the head of 
tide waters of the Damariscotta, without 
diving into immeasurable depths of un- 



50 Bncfent Dosages to 



certain prehistoric speculation, running 
back into fathomless mists, to be lost in 
the fog-banks of nomadic life, or of pre- 
adamitic epochs ! 

It is stated, French Normans followed 
the track west of their ancestry and ad- 
vanced settlements along New England 
shores. 

It is the French idea of Northman em- 
pire in New England. 

Mons. Beau-vois 1 has published the 
theory that the name Norumbegua is 
no historical myth, but records of a 
faint tradition of a Scandinavian colony, 
planted between Markland and Vineland, 
before Columbus sailed. 

It is a name attached to the earliest 
recorded observations of the coasts of 
Maine, older than Mavooshan of Hack- 
luit and Hutchinson, Pemaquid, Sagada- 
hoc of Weymouth's survey of 1605, or 
Muscougus of later date, and a name 
notable of the ancient " Eastern Parts." 

The very earliest accounts describe 
it to be ruins of a town deserted, and by 

1 Magazine of American History, January 1887. 



Gbe meetcm Continent 51 

Grotius it is derived from the Norse 
word, " Nor-be-guia." 1 

Be it so, Damariscotta and Newcastle 
hold ruins of homes deserted — remains 
of kitchen fires extinguished centuries 
ago, of Northman type. 

The truth of history rests on authority 
of tradition or record, and its force on 
proximity to the alleged facts. 

We submit that the nomenclature of a 

1 Peter Heylyn's Cosmography, 1665. 

"COSMOGRAPHIE 

in foure bookes 

contayning the 

chonographie & hlstorie 

of the whole world, and all 

the principall klngdomes, 

Provinces, Seas, and 

Isles, Thereof 

By Peter Heylyn 

London 

Printed for Anne Seile 

Ouer against St. Dunstans 

Church in Fleet streete 

1665. 

" Norumbega hath on the North-East Nova-Scotia; on 

the South-West, Virginia. The air is of a good temper, the 

soil fruitful, and the people indifferently civil ; all of them, 

as well men as women, painting their faces. The men are 

much affected to hunting, and therefore never give their 

daughters to any, unless he be well skilled in that game 

also. The women are here very chaste, and so well love 



52 Bncient Do^agee to 



country is generally made up out of 
threads of its history. 

SUGGESTIVE FACTS. 

Hence Thornton wrote in commemora- 
tion of the history of old Cornwall 
County, Maine, in 1877 : 

" Cornwall, Somersetshire, Devonshire, etc. — 
local names of the fathers, brought from their 
homes, are so many chapters of our history — so 
many heart-strings between the new and old 

their husbands, that if at any time they chance to be slain, 
the widows will neither many, nor eat flesh, till the death 
of their husbands be revenged. They both dance much : 
and for more nimbleness, sometimes stark naked. The 
sea upon the Coasts is shallow and so full of sands, that it 
is very ill sailing all along these shores. The Towns, or 
Habitations rather, so differently called by the French, 
Portugals, and Spaniards, that there is not much certainty 
known of them. Yet most have formerly agreed upon 
Norumbegua, or Arampec, as the Natives call it ; said to 
be a large, populous and well built Town, and to be situ- 
ated on a fair and capacious River of the same name also : 
and later observations tells us there is no such matter : that 
the River which the first Relations did intend, is called 
Pempegonet, neither large nor pleasant ; and that the place 
by them meant is called Agguncia, so far from being a fair 
City, that there are only a few Sheds or Cabins, covered 
with the barks of trees, or the skins of beasts. Howsoever 
I have let it stand on the first reports, it being possibly 
enough that the Town might fall into decay, deserted on 
the coming of so many several Pretenders ; and that the 
Sheds or Cabins which the last men spake of, may be only 
the remainders of it." 



Gbe Western Continent, 53 



England ... by which they would memorate 
their children in all generations of the land 
whence their fathers came. ' Cornwall ' is an 
idyl in itself. 

" Scandinavians landing on the eastern shores 
of England, spoke of this land as of the west ; 
and so the geographical expression, ' Cornwall/ 
told the points of the compass whence they came. 
Resting there some centuries, they resume west- 
ward the course of empire, and plant the name 
oi ' Cornwall ' on the coasts of Maine." * 

Cornwall is the name of the North- 
man colonial homes in the extreme south- 
west point of the island of Great Britain 
— a section seized by the vikings and 
settled by their Northman retainers, 
between the ninth and tenth centuries. 
It embraced the region of the Northman 
settlements in the west of England, 
acquired at the date the vikings were 
colonizing New England. 

It was from here their descendants 
started to seize and hold eligible sites for 
colonial homes in Maine and in New 
England. Hence the first civil organiza- 
tion here, in the Pemaquid Country, was 
carved into " Cornwall." It covered a 

1 Letter from J. W. Thornton on file. 



54 Bnclent linages to 



county, and New Dartmouth was named 
its shire town, embracing the ancient 
Sheepscott farms. These names were 
undoubtedly given by the colonists in 
memory of fatherland, and because they, 
or their ancestors, were descendants of 
Northman dwellers on the River Dart in 
England, near the sea, and of old Corn- 
wall County there. 

So it happens, we find threads of his- 
tory in Northman life, in the early co- 
lonial holdings in Maine, woven into the 
civil organizations of their Pemaquid 
homes. 

We therefore assume the foundations 
of the oyster shell-heaps described are 
"Kjoekken Moeddings" of Northman 
abodes in Maine — the ruins, probably, of 
the Northman Norumbegua of French an- 
tiquaries — relics of the pioneer ancestors 
of Devonshire emigrants, men who in 1664 
organized a town, New Dartmouth, at 
the falls of the Sheepscott, and their 
territory into a county, " Cornwall," em- 
bracing the Damariscotta ; and so have 
forged links of Northman history into the 
civil nomenclature of Pemaquid and de- 



Gbe Western Continent 55 

pendencies. In early times of colonial life 
here, the entire region seems to have been 
vocal with Northman paternity in its 
names and literature as well. 

NUMERALS OF ALLEGED ICELANDIC USE. 

Dr. Kohl, in his notes * on the Carto- 
graphy of the Maine coasts, by the late 
Leonard Wood, D.D., Ex-President of 
Bowdoin College, says : " Wa-wen-oc 
numerals, of Indians near Pemaquid, 
handed down by tradition, resemble Ice- 
landic." We give the numerals as pre- 
served by the late Hon. Stephen Parsons 
of Edgecomb, the first Senator of Lincoln 
County, State of Maine, as follows, viz. : 

1. Een. 

2. Teen. 

3. Tother. 

4. Fither. 

5. Pimp. 

6. Een-pimp. 

7. Teen-pimp. 

8. Tother-pimp. 

9. Fither-pimp. 
10. Glee-get. 

1 See 2d Series M. Hist. Soc. Collections (documentary). 



56 Bnctent XQoyzQee to 



11. Een-gleget. 

12. Teen-gleget. 

13. Tother-gleget. 

14. Fither-gleget. 

15. Bumfra. 

16. Een-bumfra. 

17. Teen-bumf ra. 

18. Tother-buuifra. 

19. Fither-bumfra. 

20. Fithery. 

Hon. Joseph Williamson of the Maine 
Historical Society, in an able paper, in 
review of the Northman literature of New 
England, in tracking the voyage of Lief 
across the Gulf of Maine from Markland 
to Vinland, suggests "Monhegan" 1 Island 
as the island mentioned, encountered on 
the way : that the tracing on the rocks of 
its Manana, and also of Damaris Cove, are 
relics of Runic characters inscribed, and 
the mysteries of the shell-heaps of Da- 
mariscotta waters are indicative of North- 
man origin. Such is the trend of the 
latest studies of history and scientific 
investigation, of Northman footfalls, 
along the coast of Maine, most palpable 

1 See M. Hist. Coll., 1891, pp. 260-3. 



the Mcetctn Continent 57 

in the ancient country of Mavooshan, 
about the ancient precincts of that coun- 
try, Pemaquid and Sagadahoc. 

The story of David Ingram, an English 
sailor, who travelled overland from the 
Gulf of Mexico to Cape Breton, 1567-8, 
set on shore by Sir John Hawkins, in 1 
October of that year, is that in passing 
through Maine, he saw a town called 
"Bega," some three quarters of a mile 
in extent, stored with hides — he says ox, 
but likely they were deer and moose pelts, 
or furs. The region was Eastern Maine, 
sixty leagues, or 180 miles, west of Cape 
Breton. He actually reached St. Johns, 
Nova Scotia, and there embarked in a 
French ship Europe (p. 176). 

He mentions " Norumbega," and the 
dwellings of cannibals near with teeth 
like dogs— a race of men told of by the 
Indians, to Popham's colonists in 1607, 
living near Popham's town of Fort St. 
George, at Sagadahoc. These statements 
may explain Prof. Morse's finding evi- 
dence of cannibals at some time among 
the shell-heaps. 

1 Magazine Am. History, p. 175, March, 1883. 



CHAPTER III. 

a.d. 1607-14. 

Advent of Christian Civilization. 

CIVIL Law and the Christian Re- 
ligion (of which law is a product), 
are types of the highest develop- 
ment of human civilization ; and appear 
to be ever, not only props of the best 
society, but pillars of State. 

Both are rooted in the principles of 
natural right and justice, summarily ex- 
pressed in the Mosaic code of the " Rock- 
written Decalogue " of the Christian 
Bible. In 1492, the existence of a conti- 
nent in the west was revived and certi- 
fied to the maritime nations of Europe. 
The next year, the lands of this western 
world were partitioned to Spain and 
Portugal, by force of divine alleged 
58 



the Wicetcm Continent* 59 

authority of vice-geral domination, in a 
dotal act of Pope Alexander VI. 

This movement startled and excited 
Europe. The legal soundness of land 
title so acquired was questioned. France 
wanted to see 1 Adam's will, and the 
clause warranting her exclusion from a 
share. England joined the protest, and 
appealed to natural and rational rights of 
possession. Legal issue of international 
importance was raised. International 
conflict of opinion opened grave questions 
of international right, and England 
pressed the issue with fearless and in- 
cisive discussion. 

The British Lion shook its mane, in 
parliamentary ferocity. Bristling with 
resentment at Papal presumption, Eng- 
land declared : " JPrescriptio sine posses- 
sionem hand valeat!" and prepared to 
enforce her common law postulate of 
homestead holding, in new-discovered 
lands, as an element of international law, 
to be applied to trans- Atlantic interests, 
and in derogation of Papal authority. 

1 Sullivan's Main, p. 54. 



6o Bncfent Voyages to 



The English doctrine was novel. It was 
also revolutionary. The conflict deep- 
ened. Spain, a favored child of the Papal 
church, was then supreme on the sea. 
England was resolute. The issue nar- 
rowed from words to blows, from logical 
deduction to physical force. Spain led 
off not only as a champion of her titles, 
but of the Church, and the received Di- 
vine vicegeral assumption of Papal 
authority in matters of international 
law. 

A century had passed the Papal Grant, 
when the English Parliament declared 
that the law of nature and of nations 
made " seizen and possession " sole 
grounds of valid titles in newly discovered 
lands. 

This was in 1580, and thereafter 
diplomacy became a battle ground of 
statesmanship. 

The crisis came in 1588 ; and argument 
ended. Spain had determined and pre- 
pared that the sword should cut the 
Gordian Knot. 

She gathered an Armada of ships 



tbe WLeetexn Continent 6t 

called the " invincible " : and entered the 
English Channel the 19th of July. 

England also grouped her men-of-war 
and piled her gun-decks with shot to 
meet the issue. 1 

Battle was joined the 21st of July. 
Fifteen different engagements were 
fought. The conflict continued to the 
2tf th of July. Spain lost five thousand 
men and seventeen of her ships of war. 
England had burned and sunk all within 
reach, which the storms did not scatter ; 
and with her ships Spain's supremacy on 
the sea went down, and England became 
mistress. 

The English law of " seizm and posses- 
sion " was enforced, as a part of the in- 
ternational code, and at once became the 
great colonizing force, in Europe. 

France hasted to seize the coasts of 
Maine in 1604. English maritime rest- 
lessness and enterprise moved the west 
of England to discover and seize eligible 
points in the New World, for homestead 
holdings, and culminated in organized 

1 Teig's Chronology. 



62 Ancient Dosages to 



movements, to compass these ends, in 
1602. 

Bartholomew Gosnold, in a ship called 
the Concord, was despatched on a voyage 
of snch discovery, and sailed from Fal- 
mouth, England, by a due west course, as 
the winds would allow him to run for the 
shores of the New World. It was a new 
and untried route. On the 14th of May, 
early in the morning, lured by the smell 
of land, the Concord ran in for it, and 
made it ahead, bearing north, "an outpoint 
of rising ground, covered with tall grown 
trees — land somewhat low : certain hil- 
locks lying inland, with shore full of 
white sand, very rocky." Lat. N. 43°. 

This landfall of tall tree-grown head- 
lands, prefacing round, green hills inland, 
with shores of white sand, and rock- 
bound coast, brought the ship to anchor. 
A Biscay sloop, with Indian sailors, some 
clad in clothes of European cut and ma- 
terial, came aboard, and chalked on the 
Concord's deck a map of the newly dis- 
covered country called " Mavooshan." * 

1 Hackliut. Strachy. Holm's Annals, vol. i., p. 142, note 4. 



the Western Continent 63 

The new and direct course steered from 
England thus struck New England on 
the coasts of Maine, about Sagadahoc. 

This notable landfall on Gosnold's 
report, becoming known in England, ar- 
rested the attention of its commercial 
circles. To verify the findings of that 
report of the land of Mavooshan, in 1605, 
a " new survey " was projected by west 
of England men ; and Captain George 
Weymouth was despatched in May in 
the ship Arch- Angel, with men of the 
Gosnold voyage of the ship's company, 
among whom was Rosier, to execute the 
new survey, which he completed in June, 
and returned with the results before 
autumn, with five Pemaquid natives. 

This survey made discovery of a mag- 
nificent harbor, and of the little river of 
Pemaquid, and the notable Sagadahoc, 
the great river of the Mavooshan land- 
fall of the Gosnold voyage of 1602. 

This landfall of hillocks, notable rivers, 
harbors, islands and mountains for land- 
marks, at once became a coveted point of 
commercial attraction and value to Eng- 



64 Bncfent tDo^a^es to 



land, for " seizen and possession" where 
the forms and forces of the English com- 
mon law should be applied in the plant- 
ing homesteads of the English race in 
New England. 

The report of Gosn old's findings, the 
confirmation thereof in details of the 
Weymouth survey, fixed the " locus in 
quo " of eminent domain for a a great 
state." Spacious harbors, grand river 
tributaries, magnificent woods, abound- 
ing sea-fisheries, beaver haunts, and otter 
ponds, were the features of commercial 
promise appreciated in England, of places 
" fit and convenient " for hopeful English 
plantations. 

Such were the environments of Saga- 
dahoc, the notable river, and Pemaquid, 
the quiet nook of a river in the land of 
Mavooshan, where existed the strangest 
fish-ponds of the sea, land-marked by 
Monhegan in the east, and the twinkling 
mountains of Aucocisco in the west, as 
described by Captain John Smith some 
ten years later. 

The commercial industries of England, 



tTbe TKftestern Continent 65 

combined, in 1606 here to found the seat 
of empire for North America. On the 
10th of April, 1606, the purposes of 
English " seizen and possession" took 
organic form and expression in legal 
muniments of contract. 

The Lord Chief-Justice of England, 
Sir John Popham, described as a great 
Puritan by the Spaniards, eminently 
honorable and patriotic, manipulated the 
contract, and noble men of England or- 
ganized a corporate body, covered by a 
crown grant, hedged about with condi- 
tions precedent. 

The transaction was a formal and legal 
conception of valid titles, permanent pos- 
sessions, for legal and enduring foothold 
of the English race, at the places discov- 
ered, surveyed, and chosen for " seizen 
and possession" as " fit and convenient " 
for making habitation, and leading out 
and planting colonies, of volunteer sub- 
jects of Great Britain. 

The salient points of the contract of 
April 10, 1606, in its northern relations, 
were the seizure and holding actual per- 



66 Bncient Dogates to 



nianent possession of the American coast 
at and about Lat. 44° K The English 
crown and its grantees, adventurers of 
the Charter License of April 10, 1606, 
known as the " Popham Colony," an or- 
ganization embodying all the elements of 
the best type of Christian civilization of 
the old world, started for seizure and 
possession of well-ascertained and defi- 
nite points in the landfall of Gosnold's 
Mavooshan, at its Sagadahoc outlet, of 
rising ground, of its western outpoint of 
tall grown trees, white sandy shore of 
rocky makeup, garnished inland with 
little green rounded hills. 

The possession here completed, the 
royal contract became executed for the 
mutual benefit of the English Crown, its 
grantees, their heirs, assignees, and suc- 
cessors. The Weymouth survey of 1605 
left the earliest monument of Christian 
English civilization in Maine, in a cross 
set up on Monhegan Island. 

Monday, the 1st of June, a.d. 1607, a 
colony of one hundred and twenty per- 
sons, having a chaplain and a surgeon, 



tTbe TKllestern Continent 67 

under command of Captain George Pop- 
ham, embarked in two ships, the Gift of 
God and her tender of the west of Eng- 
land, and the Mary and John of London. 
Friday, the 7th of August, 1607, both 
ships rode at anchor side by side in a 
cove of twelve fathoms of water, under an 
island. This island was the now well- 
known Monhegan ; and the cove an in- 
dentation under high bluffs of its eastern 
and seaward shore. 

In the constitution of England, pro- 
testant Christianity is fixed a pillar of 
state; and in all her state, commercial, 
and colonial undertakings, Christianity, 
with the Bible for a guide and the cross 
a symbol of its faith, are the great factors 
of her civilization and polity. 

Keligious formal service in honor of 
the God of the Bible, in virtue of his 
word and worship, then as now, are made 
notable features of routine duty on ship- 
board and on shore, under the Royal flag 
of England. 

The Popham Colonial Expedition, with 
its civil organization, assigned to be the 



68 ancient Dogates to 



nucleus of a great State, was an epitome 
of the Christian civilization of the old 
world, of the best type, and now harbor- 
ing under Monhegan, prepared to land 
on the soil of Maine, and plant New 
England. 

The record is : 

" Sunday, the 9th of August, in the morning, 
the most part of our whole company of both our 
ships landed on this island, . . . where the 
cross standeth, and there we heard a sermon 
delivered by our preacher, giving God thanks 
for our happy meeting and safe arrival in the 
country." 

It was to this scene Sniythe alluded, 
who, on the day of mourning, at Bow- 
doin's memorial services, for her vener- 
able and historic Packard, so eloquently 
said : " And as the dawn of authentic 
history rises, what dim yet stirring visions 
break upon us from Monhegan and 
Sagadahoc ! " 

It was the advent of the Christian 
civilization of Europe, to the shores of 
Maine, to plant New England. 



Gbe Western Continent. ^9 



THE SCENE. 

Shall we paint the scene. 

The rays of the morning sun, of this 
memorable August 9, 1607, had started 
to spread beams of light on the tall 
grown thickets of oak, beach, and fir, 
when, led by the aged and godly chief 
in command, Captain Geo. Popham, the 
colonists embarked, to land a worship- 
ping congregation on shore, with no 
doubt all the usual incidents of a public 
Sunday service of the English Church, 
from shipboard on shore, and with all 
the solemn and reverential formularies,of 
the worship of that Church. The scene 
must have been grand and imposing. 

It was the first Christian formal 
thanksgiving, at least in New England, 
and celebrated in Maine, the " Eastern 
Parts " of early New England history. 
Noblemen were in command, in execu- 
tion of a Royal State design. Royal 
naval routine duties and discipline must 
have governed, to enforce exact obedi- 
ence to Royal nautical usage. 



70 Bnctent Dosages to 



The sun-rise gun had already saluted 
the king of day, as he rose out of the 
mists of the eastern sea, to shed efful- 
gent freshness, on the cliffs of the main 
and island environments of the ships' 
anchorage, where side by side they still 
lay, dressed in the gorgeous draperies of 
St. George's Cross, for a Sabbath wel- 
come. 

The piping of the boatswain's mates 
sent shrill echoes from ship to shore 
and through the oak and beach groves, 
calling to man the boats and all hands 
to worship God. 

The officers in full uniform — mus- 
keteers without matchlocks, brawny tars 
in naval costume, colonists in holiday 
attire, making a congregation of one 
hundred and twenty souls, more or less, 
debark, and are boated to land. Reach- 
ing shore, they form and march to the old 
cross, and enclose it with a hollow square. 

The English Jack may lead the way. 
It is a formal national, religious demon- 
stration, for State purposes, in celebra- 
tion of a national achievement. 




> 
I- 

z 

o 
o . 



O T_ 
O u. 

z o 



12 

< 

LLl 

0- 



Gbe Western Continent. 71 

At the foot of the cross all are gathered 
in devout attitudes, and over all no doubt 
the nag of England waved the sanction 
of royal authority. 

The sunlit branches of the old tree- 
tops are the canopy, and the copse wood 
surroundings of living green are the 
walls to a natural sanctuary. 

Kev. Richard Seymore, in cassock and 
bands, with the Bible and book of com- 
mon prayer in hand, proclaims the word 
of God in the wilds of Maine, and kneel- 
ing before the cross, for the first time on 
the soil of New England, in the English 
tongue, is heard : 

" Almighty and most merciful Father ! we 
have sinned and strayed from thy ways like lost 
sheep. 

" O Lord, open thou our lips." 

The psalm of an hundred living voices 
tunes the air, and rises in incense of 
praise to God. 

The groves and headlands of Mon- 
ti egan, and basaltic crags of Menanas, 1 
catch and repeat the echoes. 

1 Little Island, in Indian language. 



72 £be Western Continent, 

Thanksgiving songs break from the 
congregation. The cornet and drum 
may take up the sacred refrain, till from 
shore and shipboard, over the placid 
sea, the praise of the worship of Al- 
mighty God is wafted to the wilds of 
Maine, over the ragged shores of Pema- 
quid, announcing the advent of the Chris- 
tian civilization of Europe for New Eng- 
land planting. 

Seymore preaches a sermon. The 
benediction is pronounced, and doxology 
sung. God is honored. 

The soil of Maine, at Monhegan, for 
all New England becomes consecrated 
ground, in this scene of God-honoring 
service and initial acts of Christian Eng- 
lish homestead life and civilization. 

Pemaquid was then visited, and de- 
parture taken for the notable "Saga- 
dahoc " of the Mavooshan landfall of 
1602, and a landing made on its west 
shore, amid its white sands and green 
hillocks, on the 20th of August, when 
and where all the company again gath- 
ered, to break ground for a fortified 



74 Gbe WLestem Continent. 

hamlet, after another sermon and scene 
of religious worship had consecrated the 
chosen site. 

The result was the founding of " Pop- 
ham's Town of Fort St. George," on the 
Sagadahoc side of Pemaquid in the 
country of the Moasans (Mavooshans 
of history), a town of fifty houses, 
with a church with a steeple to it, and 
a ship-yard with a vessel on the stocks, 
built and launched before the close of 
1608 ; and thereafter a " Popham's Port," 
for fur trade and fisheries, under Mon- 
hegan, on the Penobscot side of Pema- 
quid, grew into active and successful 
commercial service prior to 1614, ending 
only with the fall of Fort William 
Henry in August, 1696. 

Pemaquid was one of the places of 
the colonial holdings of the Popham 
undertakings to plant Christian civiliza- 
tion in New England, on the coast of 
Maine, within the Gosnold landfall. 
By the charter of 1620 it appears more 
than one place was occupied, and the 
Pemaquid foothold finally grew into a 



76 Bncient IDogages to 



province of the Duke of York half a 
century after, and became prosperous 
and thriftful. 

The following summary is a fair ex- 
hibit of the social, civil, and industrial 
development suggested, the culmination 
of which was crowned in the building of 
Fort William Henry in 1692, an alleged 
sketch of which is given, on page 75, with 
a photographic sketch of its site, at the 
mouth of the little harbor of Peniaquid, 
with that of the municipality of ancient 
Jamestown, the capital of the County of 
Cornwall of the Ducal Province. 

1. COMMERCE. 

Between 1631 and 1661 there were at 
Monhegan Island twenty sail of fishing 
vessels; Fisherman's (or Hipocras) Isl- 
and, two ; Damariscotta, fifteen ; Cape 
Newaggen (Boothbay), fifteen ; New 
Harbor, six ; Pemaquid, five ; East Booth- 
bay, two ; total navigation owned and 
occupied in the fisheries at Pemaquid 
and dependencies, and within a radius 
of thirty miles of Pemaquid Harbor as a 



tTbe Wcstcxn Continent. 77 

centre, a fleet of sixty-five vessels. At- 
tached to each fishing boat in the con- 
duct of this industry were four fishers, a 
master, a midshipman, a foremast man, 
and a shore's-man. 

Ship Angel Gabriel, 240 tons, 16 guns, 
was a packet ship between Pemaquid 
and Bristol, England, freighting between 
these points as an emigrant ship, owned 
by the firm of Aldsworth & Elbridge. 
She was wrecked in Pemaquid Harbor 
in an August storm, 1635. The seal of 
the ancient settlement with a sketch of 
this ship and the legend of her name 
with the date of 1631, is now extant. 
She had brought to Pemaquid a com- 
pany of godly Christian emigrants. In 
the wreck some of her people were 
drowned. 

2 . — POPULATION. 

a. d. 1670. — Pemaquid and dependen- 
cies, and Dukes Provinces were all filled 
with dwelling houses, stages for fisher- 
men, plenty of cattle, arable land, and 



78 



Bncfent IDogages to 



marshes. State Department of France 
in 1671 disclosed the fact that Pemaquid 
and Kennebec were crowned with hand- 
some English settlements. Hay and 
neat cattle were exported from Pema- 
quid, whose fields and pastures yielded 
a surplus for trade with the Bay State, 
and Lisbon, Bilboa, Bordeaux, Marseilles, 
Rochelle, and Malaga, the markets for 
foreign exports and trade in fish. 

3. AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. 

Between Boothbay and Pemaquid 
there were as follows : 



NAVIGATION. 

Fishing Boats at Men. 

Boothbay 15 90 

Fisherman's I. ... . 2 16 

Damariscotta .... 15 go 

East Boothbay. . . 2 16 

Pemaquid 5 40 

New Harbor 6 48 

Monhegan 20 160 

Totals 65 460 



FARMS. 

Boothbay to Pemaquid, 

many families 6 

Pemaquid 15 

New Harbor 10 

Between Sheepscott and 

Pemaquid 10 

Damariscotta 7 

Muscongus 12 

Total upto Sheepscott 60 

At Sheepscott 50 

Total No. of farms . . no 



Gbe Western Continent. 

TOTAL POPULATION. 

Fishermen 460 

Agricultural 550 

Other occupations no 

Trades people 250 

Total 1,370 

Sylvanus Davis 1 Statement. 



ilili 




